Astrology of Now: Equinox, Public Humiliation and Mercury Rx
October – James Tissot
I’m writing this just as the Sun approaches the celestial equator. It is the equinox, when night and day are perfectly balanced.
We enter the sign of Libra today, which this year is already hosting Mercury’s retrograde. Libra is one of the four cardinal signs that open the seasons – Aries (spring), Cancer (summer), Libra (autumn) and Capricorn (winter), or the reverse if you are in the Southern hemisphere.
Libra is the sign of balance, of equal measures, of the other, a contrast to the one-pointedness of its opposite Aries. Maybe it’s useful now to think about how the whole Zodiac balances and rebalances itself through the wheel of the year.
Each sign has its quality — Cardinal, Fixed or Mutable — which also describes the quality of its season. The Cardinals bring in the new season; the Fixed signs hold the season: they are its peak. When the Sun is in the Mutables — Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius — the seasons change.
Libra ushers in autumn here in the North. On the second day of Libra, night is a fraction longer than day. By the end of Libra’s month, the days are noticeably shorter. But it’s not until we get to Scorpio that we get that full feeling of autumn, the death of the year.
Right now we enter the seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness, of harvest festivals and here in Oxford, the university’s Michaelmas Term will begin soon. The dons are dusting their desks and ordering new spectacles already. It seems appropriate that the new academic year begins under Libra, the only one of the intellectual air sign that opens a season. For those on less antique schedules, the school year really gets started now after the settling period.
Today is a moment of equilibrium, and this year we need that especially. We are rather beset by powerful energies this month. We are coming up to a strong eclipse in Aries on September 28, and many of us can already feel the pull of that ending. We are at the height of the potentially life-changing Jupiter-Neptune opposition, and Saturn is now squaring that powerful energy, grounding it perhaps, but also giving it greater leverage in the real world.
Public Humiliation
We also have Mercury Retrograde, which could be quite helpful. This is all about reviewing decisions — especially miscarriages of justice, bent rules — and stopping for a moment to think. This round of Rx does seem to contain a big dose of public humiliation for some.
Look at what’s happened to Volkswagen this week. The car company has been caught lying about the level of emissions from their diesel-fuelled cars. Since governments, among other things were basing taxes, forecasts and targets for climate change on the accuracy of these statistics, the repercussions of this falsification is huge. Not only that, but it may turn out that this finessing was industry-wide. In which case, no wonder levels of pollution haven’t been dropping at all in town centres across Europe. With Libra involved, I expect some court cases. (Oh, I see that’s just started.) But this is also about rebalancing in the long run. Maybe now we can get on with some real pollution control.
Still on the Mercury Retrograde, I see that nasty piece of work Martin Shkreli has had to back down and cut the price of the drug Daraprim, so people won’t have to pay $750 per pill. That’s big of him. But then Mercury Rx is opposing his Aries Sun. Again, it’s about striking a balance (and eating your words).
As for our own Prime Minister, he will be weighing up whether it’s worth getting his lawyers involved over the allegations contained in the biography by his ex-funder Lord Ashcroft — who feels like he is rebalancing an unfair situation. Cameron has a Libra Sun and Libra Rising. The Moon’s North Node is right on his Ascendant: this may all turn out to be far more pivotal than he would like. Mercury Rx is smeared right across his face: right now it’s on his Sun and it’ll go back to his Ascendant. The coming eclipse is opposite his Ascendant in the sign of partnership: perhaps his betrayer is much closer to home — maybe even living in the house next door. Being Prime Minister may turn out to be poisonous for him personally. Neptune, the planet of illusion, is just beginning to transit his 6th house, which can mean that he cannot really trust the people who work for him or simply that the job’s not all it’s cracked up to be, and with Jupiter transiting his house of secrets this year, there could be more to come out. Because of the Jupiter-Neptune opposition, this is all very hard to contain.
Just wondering about this energy though for each of us personally. This Mercury Rx is a perfect time to set things right, to ask forgiveness, to pay reparation.
Ohhh dear…life changing. Liberating I hope. xox
http://jezebel.com/asheville-coffee-shop-owners-secretly-ran-misogynistic-1732097139
This is a huge story in my part of the world this week. Ugly truths being revealed, public humiliation, opportunity to set things right.
Yes. The same thing, a huge loss of face, which is so important for Libra.
A Neptune transit to the sixth is no fun. It also means that his job doesn’t have clear boundaries anymore. He is not in a nine to five.
and energy sapping. The exact moment it shifts houses depends on which house system you use, but it is around now.
Perhaps the public humiliation was actually worse for Lord Ashcroft, silent with a mouth full of sour grapes and his ghost writer Isabelle Oakeshott who is now trying to salvage credibility as a journalist? His book on Cameron is the equivalent of face book revenge porn. Best selling books in the UK this week are by a comedian, a top chef, an ex football managers, an ex footballer, then the usual murder mysteries.
Perhaps the real humiliation is on the truly evil Tom Watson who it seems has made a personal crusade to invent a story of child abuse amid MPs. It turns out his “witnesses” are people with convictions for fraud and hoaxing. He now has to stand before a parliamentary committee for a knuckle rapping or worse. Watson has Moon in Sag square Chiron/Saturn in Pisces opposite Uranus Pluto. His Sun is conj Mercury in Capricorn, he has the Saturn Chiron in Pisces conjunction in trine to Neptune in Scorpio and Jupiter retro. He’s an unsubtle man at best with blurred boundaries who has also sought to abuse his power by pressing Alison Saunders, the Director of Public Prosecutions into pursuing allegations where there was no proof etc. Watson is a self appointed witch hunter who now has questions to answer as Mercury turns direct.
Regards Cameron – perhaps his Libran abilities to negotiate will pay off? He is demanding reforms in the EU debate – the crisis ridden EU is demanding obscene amounts from the UK if it leaves the Union but the UK won’t stay or pay if the reforms aren’t made! As Saturn is about to conjunct his Pr Sun and Venus in Sagittarius the “joy” may go out of his job but for a PM – Saturn will make him less compromising as we can see with his Eu negotiations. Tr Saturn will also conjunct his Pr Mercury on Antares. We might see a warring mentality emerge?
Leonora – the comeuppance of Ashcroft seems to me a perfect Mercury Rx in Libra story. Aside from anything else, his book showed a terrible lack of good manners & as I mentioned in the New Moon post, I think “manners makyth man” was the message of this period for a lot of people.
Furthermore, don’t you think the change in policy towards Saudi Arabia is interesting in the light of Cameron’s progressed chart — which I have to admit I’ve not studied. Again it’s about justice and a change in diplomatic tactics, both Libran concerns. What’s more, it seems to be part of the Tory tactics to simply absorb Labour policy whenever it fits with their own instead of fighting it. Very interesting.
I can’t agree about Tom Watson though. There’s more to this story. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2015/oct/13/tories-gunning-for-tom-watson-forget-ignored-sexual-abuse-muckraking
Hi, Christina. I just re-read this. History has proved that you were on to something in David Cameron’s horoscope. Did you even think that he would be out of politics within a year of this writing? Some transits cast very long shadows.
Ha! Thanks for sending me back to this. Yes, it’s all there! I tell you what — I could not see how he could really be a winner with the Pluto square to his Sun when I was looking at last year’s general election chart. Out of him and Miliband, the only clear winner I could see was Nicola Sturgeon… http://www.oxfordastrologer.com/2015/05/uk-election-and-the-winner-is.html
That one really turned out to be right too — but it took a year to be proved correct!